Opinions are like arseholes – everybody has one. Facts are more useful, but can be manipulated, spun and suppressed. If you feel something is going very wrong in the world, you’re not alone. Opinions differ on which of the many problems we face is the most important, but consider this: problems like gun control, political […]

One of the saddest moments of the film was scientists blaming themselves for failing to inform the public, but that failure cannot be laid at their feet. The fourth estate – the news media – has failed spectacularly, an there is little hope for improvement now that corporate ownership is more concentrated than ever. The mainstream media frames issues and shapes public opinion. Algorithms on social media and Google are manipulated to promote the same narrow view of what is possible. Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” exposed the Propaganda Model but having accused the media of complicity, that understanding of power was never allowed to bubble to the surface of public consciousness in America. It is time to wake up and connect the dots between political corruption, corporate malfeasance, and media complicity. We need to lay the blame where it properly belongs. As Utah Phillips said:

The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and the people killing it have names and addresses.

Before the Flood is a great documentary, but like the Paris Accords, it doesn’t go nearly far enough. I strongly recommend that in his next film, DiCaprio focus on the obstructionist fossil fuel corporations, even if they threaten to sue. If we’re too afraid to step on the toes of the oil giants, we cannot hope to stop them from destroying the biosphere. They have too much power and they are not going to give it up voluntarily. The world would be a better place if the biggest multinationals were broken up into smaller units.

The next film I want to see will focus on the current DOJ investigation of the horrifying fact that EXXON KNEW about man-made climate change in 1981 and spent decades hiding the truth and lying about it. A crime of that magnitude should result in prison for perpetrators and the company should be liquidated. Ecocide should be recognized as an International Crime Against Humanity under the Rome Statute and people of all nations should demand that their governments ratify the treaty. We need to fight to take back control of our governments and hold the fossil fuel giants to account. We can all begin by standing with Standing Rock against the Dakota Access pipeline.

Every problem has a solution, most have several and you don’t have to pick just one. If you want to be part of the solution, share these ideas with your friends, family, co-workers, clients, classmates and neighbours. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

The beginning of the end of rapacious, planet-killing, unfettered capitalism is upon us and some people are worried about how it will unfold. According to a recent article in the Vancouver Observer, the RCMP is keeping a close eye not just on organizations concerned about the environment, but also individual shale gas opponents like me. Frankly, I’m somewhat flattered because the more I learn about how the whole matrix is constructed the more I’m convinced that anyone who isn’t on a government watch list by now ought to be ashamed of herself.

To be perfectly clear, I have never advocated for violence or criminal activity. I believe that the people will rise up to counter the serious threats posed by avaricious fossil fuel corporations, and in a peaceful manner. Most of the violence seen at demonstrations seems to be perpetrated by law enforcement personnel. The G20 was a deliberate attempt to scare us into submission so that we’d stay home the next time a call for action came. It didn’t work. Instead, it woke people up to the massive lies they’ve been sold. “The government wouldn’t let that happen” and “If they did, the press would tell us about it” are nonsense and now everybody who wants to see the evidence can get it online. The timing of that nasty little article in Vancouver was calculated to frighten people into staying home next Sunday instead of coming out en masse in solidarity with the People’s Climate March in New York. The tactic won’t work. I will absolutely hit the pavement to march with millions of other people around the globe, including the UN Secretary-General.

I was at a march once where some clean-cut, muscular guy in combat boots and a bandana got up on a light pole and started barking about kicking some ass. Everyone within earshot looked at him like he had two heads and then completely ignored him. By now, the majority of participants in these events are aware that undercover cops have been known to ‘infiltrate’ and sometimes try to provoke trouble, in order to justify a heavy handed response from their uniformed brethren. You can actually hear an organizer order a masked undercover cop to “put the rock down” about 30 seconds into this video. That may be an extreme example, but it does show what can happen and how it can be countered. If you ever see a similar incident, just pull out your phone and start recording some video. Obviously if they appear to pose a physical threat, the real cops can be asked to deal with them, as happened in the Quebec incident.

A few weeks ago, billionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer appeared on the TEDtalks homepage with “Beware, fellow Plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming” making the point that inequality makes everyone less secure. He made the connection that our current level of economic inequality is comparable to what existed in pre-revolutionary France, just before they started lopping off heads. He pointed out that the result of such inequality tends to be an uprising or a police state. Then Ferguson happened. The increasing militarization of the police is now very clear, as is its ultimate purpose. Clearly, fear of an uprising is pushing the U.S., as well as Canada in the direction of becoming a police state. It is instructive to notice whose fear is driving this change.

Any plutocrats capable of reading a history book should realize that the pendulum – their power – has reached its apex and is bound to reverse direction. Sunday, September 21, 2014 will very likely mark a major turning point. The number one issue in the next federal election in Canada will be electoral reform, which will also require dumping Harper. Reclaiming democracy across North America is absolutely essential to fixing the carbon problem because only then can out-of-control capitalism be reined in. If we don’t use legislation to regulate the big polluters on a global basis, our biosphere is toast. Despite what capitalists would have you believe, this is not rocket science. Power needs to come back to the people because the corporations have clearly demonstrated that they are incapable of using it responsibly.

I don’t expect to see police being over-zealous on Sunday for a few reasons beyond being way outnumbered. The intentions of the marchers are clearly peaceful and even if some cops wanted to make work for themselves, they have to realize by now that cameras will be everywhere and if they abuse their lawful authority their behaviour will be held up to scrutiny and, if applicable, ridicule. Another reason is that even though cops are more thoroughly brainwashed than just about any other segment of the population, they have kids too and are smart enough to do the math and realize that their kids and grandchildren will suffer if we fail in this epic struggle. Our cause is just and we are out of time. If you have never considered attending a public demonstration before, now is the time to stand up and be counted. If you think you have a good excuse to sit this one out, imagine how lame it will sound to your grandkids when they ask if you were at the largest climate justice mobilization in the history of the world.

I can understand why you might be a tad nervous these days. Your lofty penthouses must offer spectacular views of the collapse of western civilization. We have reached a fork in the road and there is a real struggle about which way to go. Since you’ve usurped most of the power in the world and your vote counts for more than mine, I’m asking you to please use it wisely.

If we continue down the broad path of globalization, unfettered corporate pillage and the continued massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the super-rich, we are all going to have a bad time. History repeatedly demonstrates the resilience of what a former employer of mine actually called “the great unwashed masses.” The stronger the downward momentum when the people hit bottom, the higher they will bounce. There were no gates high enough, or walls thick enough to resist this force when it erupted in France, Russia, China, or countless other “civilized” nations that didn’t share resources fairly. What’s worse, if ecocide is allowed to continue, there won’t be a world worth living in when the dust settles.

Nobody wants that to happen in America except Fox News. Bloody violence would be a wet dream for both Rupert Murdoch and the pundit class who are employed by the military-industrial-prison-complex. The vast majority of sentient beings on this planet, perhaps especially the cops and soldiers, want peace. However, we all have the right to defend ourselves and our families from abuse. More of us are recognizing that the planet we live on should also be inside our circle of concern, because if she dies, we do too and so more of us than ever are willing to put ourselves in harm’s way to defend the earth.

We are hearing the term ‘revolution’ being tossed around in a less figurative context these days. We are approaching a tipping point and none of us knows for certain what lies on the other side. Let’s take a moment to think about what we want to find there. I expect to see small communities building their own sustainable economies, growing more organic food in more shared spaces. We already see the growth of free-cycling, tool libraries, seed libraries, maker spaces and other alternatives to consumerism. We will see increasing engagement in governance, beginning particularly at the local level and, if necessary, increased civil disobedience in the prevention of ecocide. We will see a new economy growing to fill the void as our current unsustainable house of cards slowly but surely collapses down to a manageable size. The whole fossil fuel industry will gradually subside, while clean, renewable energy companies rise to replace them. Institutional pressure to divest from fossil fuels will accelerate this process. At the same time, we can also expect to see a number of democratic movements coalesce in order to find a way to bring power back to the people from whom it was stolen. Checks and balances on the power of transnational corporations must be restored if we are to save this planet. Please keep in mind that we don’t have another one to go to.

The massive chasm of income disparity represents a threat to everyone, no matter how much or how little money they have. Change is inevitable and its up to you, dear one percent, to make sure the transition goes smoothly. We all need you to become part of the solution by defecting from the forces of unmitigated greed and join our common cause as Terrestrials. We all breathe the same air, and so will all of our children, even yours.

This random insight hit me as I tumbled into bed two hours too late last night, having written 6 blog posts in 2 days. No recreational drugs were involved in this effort, not even caffeine. It was as if I turned on the spigot at a well into which thousands of bits of information had been pumped, building up the pressure. All the little bits of evidence that the world is going to hell in a handcart were shoved together inside a brain not quite big enough to hold it all, and now the flow has reversed.

I’ve been dismayed by the wide variety of problems we face today, and the inability of people to just connect the dots and realize that our children’s children are in grave danger and we need to do something about that before its too late. Divisions between any two groups on this planet are a problem because they distract us from the deception that that’s more important than the air we breathe and the water we need to live on this planet. If you think about basic human needs that we all have in common it really is not that complicated. We are all human, and beyond that, we are all Terrestrial.

We are all on and of this Earth. This planet is our home, just as we are home to billions of tiny micro-organisms that populate our skin and our intestinal tracts. The health of the parent organism depends on the health of its population, and too many of these populations are ailing. It doesn’t have to be that way. I’m sick of a culture where rape is considered acceptable to joke about while we allow massive corporations to rape the planet for the profit of the few. If the Earth is our mother, think about that. We allow corporations to rape our mother. Yes, that is a truly disturbing picture. How many of us are saying that’s OK, as long as I get paid for it? Under the law of this land the person who co-operates with a crime is guilty as an accessory to it. It’s time to wake up to that fact.

I often tell my child that every problem has a solution and most have several. Saving the Earth has millions of solutions and we don’t have to pick just one. Some of us are pushing to divest from fossil fuels, others are fighting to get genetically engineered foods properly labeled and others want fluoride out of the drinking water. There are thousand of courageous people working at worthy and noble causes. These are all important, but the task of fixing all that is broken in our world will be much, much easier once we have wrestled control of our democracies out of the bloody hands of corporations who are murdering mother earth.

Repairing our broken democracies really is the foundation of any plan to save the world. That is the first prize we must keep our eyes on. That is the intermediate step that will bring all our plans closer to fruition. Terrestrialism is a little seed of an idea that I would like to plant in other brains. As an identity, it spans every living being on this planet – it is a club we already belong to. If you can shift your perception to encompass that idea, the world you perceive will change into a far less threatening place.

If you’re wondering how this will work, understand that it really is all about what you focus on. If you are focused on repairing the damage we have done to the biosphere so that our grandchildren don’t drown during a hurricane, how important is it to establish exactly who knocked down the world trade centre? Once you realize that the past cannot be undone, but the future can be saved, it becomes easier to entertain two conflicting viewpoints in your brain as well as in your circle of friends, without making a big deal out of it. Bringing the guilty to justice is certainly a worthy cause, and that is a goal we should work towards, but our basic needs for air, clean water and healthy food must be prioritized.

Keeping the goal in mind is helpful when fracking your brain by filling it up with the thousands of points-of-view that you are exposed to every day. Some of these ideas will stay with you, not unlike the chemicals that are pumped into the ground under our aquifers, but many will be ejected as unhelpful. Whenever you find a deep fissure between ideas, look for the elements of distraction and deception that go along with the politics of division, and realize how many of these dichotomies are false and illusory. We are all of this earth and we all have a duty of stewardship towards her.